pictured are the shims I removed from my upper control arm attachments. The ones on the left are thin (1/16") and the others on the right and stacked up are 1/8" as I recall). Are the ones without the top tab original? or were they added by alignment shops in subsequent years?

pictured are the shims I removed from my upper control arm attachments. The ones on the left are thin (1/16") and the others on the right and stacked up are 1/8" as I recall). Are the ones without the top tab original? or were they added by alignment shops in subsequent years?

Gary, Pretty Sure they have been added, my Z28 has both thick and thin shims and they are no hole tab type. If you look at the ones in your picture they appear to have a bigger 1/2" hole where they fit over the upper control arm bolt. Camaro upper control arm bolts are 7/16" FWIW, the Ebay ad shows the shims fitting Big Cars like Impalas , 57 Chev etc, pretty sure those cars use 1/2" upper bolts also.

I am going out on a limb here. I was the brake and front end tech at a Buick dealership in the 70's. Cars were routinely aligned as a maintenance, even when close to new and many aligned under warranty.

I realize I am talking 70's not 60's. But, every new Buick I aligned had ONLY the shims without "handles" from the factory. When performing the first alignment (whether at the delaer or an independent shop) MANY alignment techs would discard those in favor of the handled shims simply because they were a pain to keep in place with one hand while you were tightening the bolt with the other. The one exception would be the owner of an independent shop because he actually had to PAY for the new shims. Most techs didn't care about the additional cost, as they were paid the same regardless of whether they used new shims or re-used old ones.

This one is going to be hard to document either way. I can't tell you how many cars received an alignment during the warranty period. In fact the service advisors (who were paid based on the amount of work they wrote up) would advise the client to complain about a crooked steering wheel or "pulling" in the front end, just to get a free alignment under warranty.

So... unless you bought the car new, AND never had the front end aligned, it will be hard to know what came in there.

My PERSONAL belief is the non-handled shims. I have seen them as thick as 1/4 and as thin as 1/32 on factory cars.

I can't speak to Buick, but I spent 21 years in Chevrolet assembly plants from '64-'85, and I'm familiar with the "Geo-Machines" that were used on the Chassis Lines to set caster and camber AND with the front sheet metal installation, including the 8 shimmed fender-to-cowl bolts per car. The shims used at the upper control arm shaft attachment in the Geo-Machines were the "handle" type (no holes), and the shims used at the fender attachments were the plain U-shape (no handle) type.

this would be another good example of why the enthusiasts need somone to document a low mile original - like charley did with the 70 model Z- I think that was a great service to the hobby anyone have a <10k original mi car laying around? the black million dollar camaro comes to mind to me

My car has 12800 on it but drag racer/first owner messed with somethings. I have found neat inspection marks . This week I had the rear axle cover off and it had a lot of blue paint markings. Springs were a greenish yellow. I think a lot of my bolts are original but some hard to read. I have wondered if my car was stored someplace damp and if the guy was on stone roads. He's around but I have only talked to his son and he doesn't have a lot of info.